Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Little loom-knit hearts

Here they are, under the wire for Valentine's Day, I give you my "Little Loom-Knit Hearts". I have admired all those cute little crocheted hearts that I've seen out there on the Net and just knew there must be a way to create them on the loom. I kicked that thought around for a several years, but the more I tried to "think" it through, the more elusive the solution seemed to be. So, yesterday when I wasn't consciously thinking about much of anything (a habit of late), I had an "loomy heart" epiphany. I had to wait until bedtime to try it out, but as evident from the little red heart in the middle of the above heap, everything worked to my "heart-felt" satisfaction. I'm sorry these arrived so late, but epiphanies seem to ignore scheduled appearances.

To proof my instructions, I whipped off about ten more of these bad boys to go with the two initial red hearts I made last night. However, once you get started, you are sure to have a "heart-attack", because these things are habit forming. I kept wanting to make one in pink, another in yellow, lavender, or white, etc. and the next thing I knew I had a dozen little hearts in no time at all. I'm including the general directions in this blog post with hopes your enjoy these as much as I have.

Little Loom-Knit Hearts Instructions

Size: 2 inches (size can be altered 1/4 inch in either direction by adding or decreasing rows)

Materials

12-peg Knifty Knitter Flower Loom

Small amount of worsted weight yarn (use two strands as one)

Crochet hook - size G

Instructions

(Note: These instructions are written from the perspective of the pegs being numbered in a counterclockwise direction.)

CO using drawstring cast on method. (Note: The original instructions for the drawstring cast on are listed in the right sidebar. I do this a bit differently now, but the original instructions should work.)

Rows 1-2: Flat knit both rows in rounds.

Row 3: With the working yarn at peg-12, slip the current peg and flat knit from peg-11 back to peg-1.

BO: Begin bind off by slipping peg-1, flat knit peg-2 and move the loop to peg-1; knit bottom loop over the top loop and return the loop to peg-2.

Bring the working yarn counterclockwise in front of peg-2 and across peg-3 to flat knit both pegs; move the loop from peg-3 to peg-2, knit the bottom loop over the top loop and return loop to peg-3.

Continue binding off pegs 3-5 as outlined in Step 4 and stop when pegs 1-5 are empty and the working yarn is at peg-6

With the working yarn at peg-6, bring the yarn in a clockwise direction from behind the peg, flat knit one stitch and repeat for a total of two stitches. Tighten the stitch and reverse the yarn in a counterclockwise direction (still on peg-6), flat knit two more stitches. (Reversing the direction creates the bottom point of the little heart.)

Proceed with the bind off again following the basic procedure outlined in Step 4. Stop when the working yarn is at peg-10 and pegs 1-9 are empty.

With the working yarn at peg-10, repeat the procedure in Step 5 to add a little extra stitch to the curved edge of the heart top.

Finish the basic bind off on the last peg and flat knit an extra stitch before cutting the ending yarn tail and pulling it through the last stitch.

Finishing: Cinch the drawstring cast on opening shut with the beginning yarn tail on the right side of the heart. Use a crochet hook to pull the drawstring tails to the wrong side, then bring the yarn tail over the top indention and back through the center to the wrong side again and tighten to close the cast on edge. (You may want to leave a small opening or cinch it completely shut - it up to whatever appeal to you. You can see examples of both methods below.) Next, hook the ending yarn tail at the base of the ending stitch and pull it to the wrong side. Finish by tying the beginning and ending yarn tails in a square knot. Trim and secure the yarn tails.

Now, make a whole garland of these cuties in all the colors of the rainbow or just make one or two to wear as a pin and a token of your love! Happy Valentine's Day!

UPDATE: Lucy Earle (aka darkfaewitch) has made a YouTube video demonstrating this pattern from start to finish. Thank you, Lucy, for making the Little Loom-Knit Hearts video!